


all my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling

by SiderumInCaelo



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiderumInCaelo/pseuds/SiderumInCaelo
Summary: "You can stay at my place, if you like," Crowley said.  So Aziraphale does.





	all my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for _Good Omens_, so of course I wrote about Aziraphale spending the night at Crowley's. Sorry if it's already been done a million times before. (Except not really sorry - it's just such great fic material!)
> 
> The title is from the song "All This and Heaven Too" by Florence + The Machine.

They’re both quiet on the bus back to London.

It’s unusual, for them, but it feels right somehow to just sit in silence and watch as they pass though the darkened English countryside. All of It came so close to being destroyed, Aziraphale thinks.

The bus eventually stops in front of Crowley’s flat, and Aziraphale remembers with a pang that this is his stop too, tonight. He miracles a wad of bills to hand to the driver as he exits – it’s the least he can do after making him drive so far from his route, and Heaven’s hardly going to care about one unnecessary miracle _now_. 

Aziraphale pushes that thought aside. They saved the world, and should get to celebrate that for a little while before they start worrying about the consequences.

Crowley seems to have the same idea, because the first thing he does once inside is to pop open a bottle of champagne. 

“To averting the apocalypse,” he says, taking a swig straight from the bottle and then passing it to Aziraphale.

“To averting the apocalypse,” he agrees. He takes a sip, and is suddenly, ridiculously, aware that his lips are where Crowley’s were just a few moments ago.

If he quickly miracles a pair of champagne flutes, it’s definitely because he’s an angel with _standards_, thank you, and not because he needs to stop thinking about Crowley’s lips.

Whatever they’d toasted to, both Aziraphale and Crowley are drinking too fast, too silently, for it to feel celebratory. Finally Aziraphale, now rather tipsy, just starts rambling to fill up the quiet, about whatever he can think of – that really good wine he’d had in 1848, the place in London that does the best crepes he’s found outside of Paris, that time he’d met Oscar Wilde and gotten him to sign a first edition of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ –

“'M sorry about your shop,” Crowley interjects abruptly.

It catches Aziraphale off-guard, because he’d managed to forget that his shop had burned down again. But he pushes that aside and says, “I suppose I can get a new one, replace the books, all that,” because Crowley looks sad enough about it without Aziraphale wallowing. Then a question occurs to him. “How did you know it burned down, anyway?”

“I went there. That’s how I got Agnes’s book, remember?” and Aziraphale does now, but he’d been discorporated and rather distracted at the time. “Whole place was on fire, and you weren’t there,” added Crowley, quieter, and Aziraphale remembers something else.

_I lost my best friend,_ Crowley had said, and Aziraphale had thought it was about not running away to Alpha Centauri together. But now…

“Did… you didn’t think I’d died, did you?” Aziraphale asks, half-scared to hear the answer.

“It was on fire,” Crowley repeats, slower, like Aziraphale’s being stupid, “and you were gone.”

It’s not a _yes_, but it might as well be.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “It was Shadwell’s fault, he came over while I had the portal open and surprised me and I stepped into it before –”

Then Aziraphale stops talking, because Crowley’s shoulders are shaking.

He’s crying.

Aziraphale crosses over to him without thinking, sobering up as he goes, because this definitely more than he can manage drunk. “It’s all right, I’m here now, I’m fine,” he babbles, hands fluttering, because _Crowley_ is _crying_ and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“I _know_,” Crowley responds, sounding frustrated even though the tears. “I don’t know why I’m –”

He’s stopped by Aziraphale wrapping him in a hug. It’s more – much more – physical contact than is usual for them, but it feels right, and after freezing for a moment Crowley leans into the touch.

“It’s probably just shock,” Aziraphale says lightly. “It has been a rather trying day.”

“Shock? That’s a _human_ thing.”

“You don’t think we’re both a little human by now?”

Crowley doesn’t argue with that or pull away, but Aziraphale can tell he’s still crying, a little.

“Maybe it would help if you sobered up?” Aziraphale suggests.

“Don’t wanna,” Crowley mumbles in response.

“Well, why don’t you at least lie down?” Aziraphale tries. “You must be as exhausted as I am.”

“Fine,” assents Crowley. He pulls away from Aziraphale, who feels suddenly bereft at the loss of contact.

Crowley manages to stand under his own power but once upright starts to sway, so Aziraphale quickly moves next to him and puts an arm around his shoulders to steady him. 

They stumble into Crowley’s bedroom, and Crowley flops onto the bed, shoes and all. He makes no effort to remove them, so Aziraphale bends over, untying and gently sliding them off. He takes Crowley’s sunglasses off, too, and wipes away a lingering tear with his thumb.

Then he pulls his hand away, worried he’s overstepped, but Crowley grabs his wrist. “Stay,” he says. “Please.”

Aziraphale freezes for a moment, because now they’re definitely crossing into unknown territory. But not a single part of him considers leaving. 

“Of course,” he says, sitting on the bed to take off his own shoes, shrug off his jacket, and undo his bow tie, before lying down next to Crowley.

“I’ll get the lights, shall I?” he asks, and turns them off with a snap once Crowley mumbles his assent.

It’s strangely intimate, lying next to each other in the dark, hearing the soft sounds of Crowley’s breath. He expects Crowley to fall asleep – he knows he’s developed a fondness for sleeping – but in the dim light he can see that Crowley’s eyes are still open, looking at the ceiling.

“You were right,” Aziraphale finds himself saying, “at the bandstand, about us being on our own side. I should have gone with you.”

“We helped in the end though, with Adam, didn’t we?”

“Oh, I suppose. But I still shouldn’t have said –” _I don’t even like you_, he remembers, and flinches, “what I said.”

Crowley turns on his side, so he’s looking at Aziraphale. “It’s hard to walk away from Heaven,” he says. “I understand,” he adds, sounding sadder than Aziraphale thinks he’s ever heard.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale whispers, throat tight. Forgiveness from a demon, he marvels. Who would’ve thought.

Then Crowley rolls all the way over, so his head is on Aziraphale’s shoulder, his hand splayed across Aziraphale’s chest, his leg hooked over Aziraphale's.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks tentatively.

“You’re comfy,” Crowley says, words muffled against Aziraphale’s shirt, sounding like he’s daring Aziraphale to challenge him.

He doesn’t. “Sleep well, dear,” he says, the endearment slipping out before he can stop it. _I love you_, he thinks, considers saying, but doesn’t. He doesn’t want to shatter the moment.

Maybe he’ll say it in the future, now that they have a future.

But for now, he drapes his arm across Crowley’s back, and closes his eyes.


End file.
